“Today, you and I are pledged to take further steps to reduce the lag in the purchasing power of industrial workers and to strengthen and stabilize the markets for the farmers’ products. The two go hand in hand. Each depends for its effectiveness upon the other. Both working simultaneously will open new outlets for productive capital. Our Nation so richly endowed with natural resources and with a capable and industrious population should be able to devise ways and means of insuring to all our able-bodied working men and women a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers’ wages or stretching workers’ hours. Enlightened business is learning that competition ought not to cause bad social consequences which inevitably react upon the profits of business itself. All but the hopelessly reactionary will agree that to conserve our primary resources of man power, government must have some control over maximum hours, minimum wages, the evil of child labor and the exploitation of unorganized labor.”

A Message from FDR about the Living Wage

After many requests on my part the Congress passed a Fair Labor Standards Act, what we call the Wages and Hours Bill. That Act –applying to products in interstate commerce — ends child labor, sets a floor below wages and a ceiling over hours of labor.

Except perhaps for the Social Security Act, it is the most far-reaching, the most far-sighted program for the benefit of workers ever adopted here or in any other country. Without question it starts us toward a better standard of living and increases purchasing power to buy the products of farm and factory.

Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000.00 a day, who has been turning his employees over to the Government relief rolls in order to preserve his company’s undistributed reserves, tell you — using his stockholders’ money to pay the postage for his personal opinions — tell you that a wage of $11.00 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry. Fortunately for business as a whole, and therefore for the Nation, that type of executive is a rarity with whom most business executives most heartily disagree.

We are down to the end. The last few days of the signature gathering for the Eureka Fair Wage Act. We are going to need all hands on deck for one last run. We need to break the 15% barrier to get on the ballot in June. That means we need to bust out at Arts Alive this Saturday night, February 2nd. Weather permitting we need to cover all the spots in Old Town that we can from 6 to 9 pm. We are on the verge of a tremendous accomplishment, getting The “Minimum Wage Ordinance*” on the ballot. Many of you have helped make that happen. A small group of people coming together around the idea of making things better for working class people are one step closer to getting raises for 1400 people in our little town of Eureka. With one more all out effort, we will get over the top and trigger an election for June of 2013.

“And in 1995, Jack Farris, president of the National Federation of Independent Business claimed that President Clinton’s proposed 90 cents per hour minimum wage hike from $4.25 to $5.15 was “a regressive and job-killing scheme which will put a big dent in small-business hiring.” According to County Business Patterns data, employment in businesses with fewer than 20 employees grew by almost two million workers between 1995 and 2000. Oops. “

If you have not signed yet but think this is worthy of a vote, please contact us at info@fairwages.org or 707-442-7465 and we will do our best to get your signature. EVERY SIGNATURE COUNTS! The Eureka Fair Wage Act is a People’s Initiative to raise the minimum wage to $12.00 an hour for large employers in the city of Eureka.

If you can volunteer in some way or assist in some way in this final week of the signature drive please contact us. Assuming that we make the ballot we will have several more months of intense campaigning ahead of us. WE COULD USE YOUR SUPPORT.

]Thank you!

~please forward to Eureka voters!~

The Tiered Minimum Wage in Theory and Practice

The theory behind the tiered minimum wage (and here we refer to a two tiered minimum wage, increased only for larger employers, not for smaller employers) is clear. Many recent studies have shown that the majority of minimum wage workers work for very large businesses with adequate financial resources to pay a high minimum wage of $12.00 to $15.00 an hour. We are in an era of extraordinarily high corporate profits, and it coincides with an era when workers are getting the smallest percentage in wages of the value of the product of their labor in a half century. We call the large employers the formal economy.

Smaller businesses, that we call the informal economy, are family & friends businesses for the most part. When we talk about raising the minimum wage it is important to remember that it is not only small business owners who resist raising the minimum wage, but it is often employees of these small businesses who also oppose us. Both of them are fearful of business failure and loss of employment. This is the practice part. It is our experience that this fear cannot be overcome. Thus we in the minimum wage movement must honor this informal economy (both the business people and the employees) and give exemption to smaller businesses in minimum wage laws and ordinances. Yes it is a compromise, but there are a certain number of people who want and enjoy flexibility in their work arrangements and alternative wage arrangements and find them in the informal small business context. This is a historic compromise between the idea of government regulation of business and deregulation. In this case, large businesses are regulated, while small businesses are deregulated.

With this understanding we then need to ask “What is a small business?” When we started our dialog here in Eureka at the beginning of the Eureka Fair Wage Act campaign our initial figure was 100 employees. Through discussion with fellow activists and other community groups including organised labor our figure was soon reduced to 25 employees. It seemed to stick there. And now that we are out in the community it is a figure that seems to raise very little controversy. The number 25 employees or more seems to resonate with the public as a reasonable distinction between a small business and a large business.

So if there is a sweet spot, a Goldilocks number, a magic number for two tiered minimum wage proposals, it is likely somewhere between 20 and 50. It is interesting that Santa Fe New Mexico, with its increased minimum wage, has an exemption for less than 25 employees as well. We arrived at that same number through independent means.

It has been very easy to get signatures in support of the two-tiered minimum wage. We are almost certain we will make the ballot with it. By going to a two-tier minimum wage we have assuaged a good portion of the concern from the small business community. Indeed, many of them start to see higher wages for large enterprises as a benefit for smaller local businesses. This is a wedge issue, but it is the people’s wedge issue.

Q. WalMart will just pass this cost along to us, won’t they? Won’t they just raise their prices?

A. No, this is a myth. A study last year showed that even if Walmart applied a $12 an hour minimum wage to all of its hundreds of thousands of employees nationwide, and passed along 100% of the cost to its customers, that the price rise would be insignificant.

Q. If a $12.00 an hour minimum wage is so good for the economy, why don’t we just make it $50.00 an hour?

A. First of all, we are not asking for $50.00 an hour, your question is a red herring. Secondly, what we say, and what the research has proved, is that a modest rise in the minimum wage produces a modest gain in the local economy, regardless of the minimum wage in surrounding regions.

Q. Won’t Walmart just lay off a few employees to pay for this? People will lose their jobs.

A. No. Walmart prides itself on being a lean, low-cost operation. They are already running at minimum staff levels. They are already understaffing, underpaying and overworking their employees.

Q. Won’t this just drive the larger employers out of Eureka?

A. No. Eureka is the economic, political and population center of Humboldt County and the surrounding region. Thousands of workers commute into Eureka every working day. But if this unlikely effect starts to occur we will work to extend this minimum wage protection to all the workers of Humboldt County.

Q. How would this benefit local small businesses?

A. Local businesses with 25 employees or fewer will be exempt from this ordinance. On the other hand a significant portion of their customers will have a few thousand dollars more to spend locally every year.

Q. Isn’t this just more welfare?

A. No. The benefits of a higher minimum wage go to people who are workers, obviously.

Q. How do higher, fairer wages benefit the local community?

A. Higher wages paid to local workers circulate locally and grow the local economy. It is money that is not airlifted to Bentonville, Arkansas (and sucked out of our local economy forever) or spent on a multi-million dollar CEO salary somewhere else.

Q. How much cash would flow to the local economy under this ordinance?

A. If there are 1,000 local employees covered under this ordinance, then we estimate there will be at least $2.5 million annually pumped into the local economythrough higher, fairer wages, and the multiplier effectwill amplify the gain.

Q. Wouldn’t $12.00 an hour be the highest minimum wage in the United States?

A. Yes, but the Eureka Fair Wage Act will only apply to large businesses with the resources to support it. Minimum wage laws in other localities apply generally to all employers large and small or only to employers with government contracts. We think our approach makes more senseboth socially and economically and more closely fits our common local Humboldt ethos.

Q. Don’t minimum wage laws result in higher unemployment? Employers will fire employees to cover the cost of paying higher wages, won’t they? Isn’t that an ironclad law of economics?

A. No. Human history is clear that periods of high employment coincide with periods of high wages. This was true 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago, and 2,000 years ago, as far back as civilization began. In the United States, workers real wages as a percentage of GDP are at a 70 year low, while real unemployment and corporate profits are at 70 year highs. The fact that there are millions of people seeking work and there are not enough jobs for them is a fault in the predatory capitalist economy that is unrelated to wages.

If you have not signed yet but think this is worthy of a vote, please contact us at info@fairwages.org or 707-442-7465 and we will do our best to get your signature. EVERY SIGNATURE COUNTS! The Eureka Fair Wage Act is a People’s Initiative to raise the minimum wage to $12.00 an hour for large employers in the city of Eureka.

If you can volunteer in some way or assist in some way in this final week of the signature drive please contact us. Assuming that we make the ballot we will have several more months of intense campaigning ahead of us. WE COULD USE YOUR SUPPORT.

100,000 ADDITIONAL SQUARE FEET of retail space is equal to one hundred (100) 1,000 square foot “shoppes” in Old Town or fifty (50) 2,000 square foot “shoppes” in Old Town, Fortuna, Arcata, Cutten, or even twenty-five (25) 4,000 square foot “emporiums” in the Henderloin or anywhere else in Humboldt County. These retail spaces will become redundant. Surplus. Vacant.

Or maybe you think we have too many shoppes and emporia in Eureka, Arcata, Fortuna, Garberville, and elsewhere in Humboldt County?

Get the Picture?

from The Tripllicate Crescent City

The wait’s nearly over. After more than a year of shifting store merchandise and non-stop construction, Walmart will begin inviting shoppers into its newly expanded store on Wednesday. The expansion adds nearly 100,000 square feet to the Crescent City Walmart, said store manager Nick Gonnella. The new Walmart Supercenter will include a full grocery store with a deli and a bakery as well as produce, meat and dairy departments. The newly remodeled store will also include a hair salon, a Subway and a new Java Hut, Gonnella said.“We’re one of the largest expansions square footage-wise in all of California,” he said. “We started as a pretty small Walmart store and to grow by 100,000 square feet was no easy task.”

“In 2011 more than 62 percent of minimum-wage workers were women compared to just 38 percent of male minimum-wage workers. Slightly more than 2.5 million women earn the minimum wage or less, while approximately 1.5 million men do. This imbalance is even more drastic once you consider that women were just 46.9 percent of all employed workers in 2011.”

“And in 1995, Jack Farris, president of the National Federation of Independent Business claimed that President Clinton’s proposed 90 cents per hour minimum wage hike from $4.25 to $5.15 was “a regressive and job-killing scheme which will put a big dent in small-business hiring.” According to County Business Patterns data, employment in businesses with fewer than 20 employees grew by almost two million workers between 1995 and 2000. Oops. “

In 1968 an hour’s pay at minimum wage ( $1.60) would buy almost 5 gallons of gasoline (@ $0.33/ gal.) but today in Eureka an hour’s minimum wage ($8.00) will buy a little less than 2 gallons of gasoline (@ $4.37 per gallon.)

If the minimum wage had been increased at the same rate as the price of gas, the minimum wage would be over $21.00 per hour today.

In 2010, our nation’s economy was growing, but most Americans didn’t feel it because 93 percent of the income growth went to the richest 1 percent. The bottom 90 percent of Americans got none. It sure wasn’t always like that. Between 1938, when the federal minimum wage was first enacted, and 1968, when it peaked in value, the bottom 90 percent of households shared 69 percent of the nation’s income growth. The middle class was able to grow.

This June, a Zogby Analytics survey of likely voters found seven out of 10 supporting a raise above $10 an hour (including 54 percent of Republicans). Notably, 71 percent of young people (18 to 23 years old) favored it. Likewise, last November’s “American Values Survey” by the Public Religion Research Institute showed two-thirds of Americans in favor of a $10-per-hour minimum.

Benefit Bash

Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting, fighting for higher wages that is. We took the Party to Arcata for Saturday night as Backwoods Capo And headliner Rooster McClintock Rocked the Veterans Memorial. Etta was jazzed to go

Bill was there to help with Setting up

Some more of the crew

The Fair Wage Graphics Contest

The Band Arrived

We had a Killer Sunset

People Began to arrive

Even the little ones came out

Backwoods Capo

Dancing to Rooster McClintock

Having some brew

Thanks to The Ink People, Mad River Brewery, PARC, Bien Padre, The Gold Rush, The Veteran’s Hall and all the folks that Came out. A special thanks to Sunset, Gemini and their crew for organizing and cooking the feast. And last but not least Backwoods Capo and Rooster McClintock for playing so we could kick up our heals.